


To Build A Home

by orphan_account



Category: Night at the Museum (2006 2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:17:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Larry Daley found a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Build A Home

 

>   
>  _There is a house built out of stone_  
>  _Wooden floors, walls and window sills_  
>  _Tables and chairs worn out by all the dust_  
>  _This is a place where I don’t feel alone_  
>  _This is a place where I feel at home_

> **_-To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra_ **

Larry Daley didn’t have what one would call a stable lifestyle. Growing up his parents were divorced, his mother dying shortly after his graduation and his father struggling to raise him. After high school there wasn’t enough money for college, and to be honest, not enough interest either, and so Larry worked as grocer boy, singing pipe dreams of inventions that would make the work easier. He got fired a year in to the job and since then he’s been hopping around. Never in one job too long.

And maybe it was the stories his mother told him in the wake of the divorce, tales of him being special, maybe to make him feel less guilt-wrecked, but he believed them. He believed them so largely that he couldn’t accept the mundane. If he tried hard enough, if he worked hard enough than he could be so much more. That’s what his mother used to say. That’s what his well-meaning but work-hardened father scoffed at.

The marriage to Erica seemed like a fine idea, he met her at one of his jobs; a mascot for some car dealership store. She was getting her second car on her own, her blonde hair billowing in the wind and her smart dress suit drawing his attention. He was in love. She was bright and shining and didn’t seem to mind that he was dressed in a shoddy mascot costume that provided no breathing room. She listened to his dreams, encouraged his entrepreneurship dreams. It was love at first sight.

He was married to her for a year when Nicky came along, his son. His son that he loved and swore that he would do no wrong, give him the support and stability that his own childhood was bereft of. But it was hard going and Erica wasn’t satisfied. It was when Nicky was starting kindergarten that she put her heel down. While Erica was working long hours at her job Larry had been taking care of Nicky but now that Nicky no longer needed a constant babysitter it was time Larry got a job. He needed a job. He needed a  _real_  job she pleaded after the third time he got fired in a month.

He needed a real job, she threatened, or he needed to get out.

He tried making his own company, in the rocky months that followed that final statement and with his son’s future in the line he swore he’d show Erica. Erica who was already getting the divorce papers signed. He needed to show the court that he could take care of his son.

_Please don’t take him away. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Please don’t take him away._

And he tried. He really did but it seemed not enough. The business was a failure. She asked him to pack his bag and suddenly he’s flashing back to his own childhood, constant fights and tears heard in the other room while he sat on his small bed. He left with a smile, not for Erica but for Nicky. It wasn’t the end of the world, he could still visit him on weekends and holidays.

A few years later she was dating Mr. Dom, stock trade person and Nicky’s new role model.

So what if he was eccentric and muttered to himself occasionally. So what if he couldn’t get a stable job? He tried. He tried. He kept searching through newspaper clippings and internet job sites and he tried. For Nicky.

So when he came to the museum, when he saw it  _coming to life_ , It was like finally his mother’s tales of  _special_  had come true, but he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man. And while he had a pension for the impossible, a taste for the ridiculous, he knew what he could handle and what he could not and he  _could not_  handle angry huns and prankster monkeys. He could not.

But then he’d see Nicky, he’d see him drifting farther away and he held on until finally he had a stable job. A job that paid the bills and wouldn’t fire him. It was good for a while. Nicky was so excited to come to his new night job that it was a dream come true. Suddenly Dom wasn’t the big guy now.

A few months later after being a night guard his father died, old age coupled with aches that came from constant working. Milton Daley was an honest man but with no other real relatives it was up to Larry to be the one to run most of the funeral. He took off work and paid for the funeral service but was dismayed to find it took quite a chunk of money from his pockets. He’d need to work overtime to meet the rent or either cut back some. It was a humbling experience and also a depressing one. How would he able to send Nicky to college if he couldn’t pay comfortably for his own father’s funeral?

It got him to thinking and with the tentative push of someone whose had their dreams crushed a one too many times, Larry started a side-business. Just for a little money on the side. It was slow going but in one gigantic wave,  _Daley Devices_  started becoming popular. Really popular.

Larry would come to regret leaving his position as Night Guard so suddenly but at the thought of  _stability_ , at the thought of finally making enough to support him and Nicky, he took it in a heartbeat. He reasoned that the museum would be fine with Teddy in charge, reasoned that he’d visit every now and again but being a CEO didn’t grant a lot of breaks and soon days and weeks without visit became months. Became a whole year.

Sometimes to this day he feared what would’ve happened if he didn’t drop by that day. If Jedediah didn’t call him back. He would’ve finically secure, for sure, but even Nicky realized that being a CEO wasn’t befitting Larry Daley.

It all worked out in the end, the night program was a hit and soon enough Larry had a comfortable income. A stable life even in all the idiosyncrasies a magic tablet offers. He got an apartment in Manhattan, not shiny like his old apartment back when he was CEO but good. If only his father saw him now. He’d be yelling at him to ask why he quit his CEO job and demanding Larry take it back up again. But no, Larry was satisfied in his life. In his job.

And then the tablet was losing its magic. Larry didn’t panic. Not when Nicky started talking about taking the same route as his father, the route he struggled with for years before getting lucky- and Larry knows it was luck, not anything inherently special about him. He didn’t panic. Not when everyone started freezing, not when Lancelot was playing villain, not when he was trapped with Laa in the breakroom. They were going to fix the tablet. They had to.

It wasn’t until Larry was in America, saying goodbye to everyone that he numbly realized that his stable life was falling to dust. Like a dream brought up to the sun, only real in the nighttime when everyone else was sleeping.

“It’s time for your next adventure.” Teddy said, the last person he was saying goodbye to.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow.” Larry replied, feeling his throat close around the words. Funny enough how almost eight years ago that was just a fact of his life. It didn’t seem so scary back then, perusing newspapers for jobs and having no idea of when or how he was going to pay the bills next. Maybe because back then it didn’t feel like he was saying goodbye to his family for the last time. Because he knew that no matter how bad it got, Erica would still let him see Nicky, or if she wouldn’t, he knew he’d still find a way.

This time, it wasn’t really a choice.

This time there’d be no weekend visits or holiday visits or any visits really. His home that he’s found was turning to statues and wax figures, never to awaken again.

Teddy smiled, his voice fond and encouraging.

“How exciting!”

When Teddy’s face finally froze, after one last jumpscare, that’s when Larry let the tears drop. The sun bright and unwelcoming on his face.

 

> __cause I built you a home  
>  for you_  
>  _for me  
>  _ _until it disappeared  
>  _ _from me  
>  _ _from you  
>  _ _And now, it’s time to turn to leave and turn to dust__
> 
> **_To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively was to be titled: How a man wasn’t afraid of the dark but became afraid of the light. And the stillness that followed.
> 
> Written while listening to the song, To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra. I hope you like this weird??? Larry centric piece.


End file.
